


You Can't Shoot Me Down ('Cause You Already Knocked Me Dead)

by hooksandheroics



Category: Figure Skating RPF
Genre: Brooklyn Nine-Nine AU, Cops Shenanigans, F/M, Fluff, detectives au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-04
Updated: 2018-09-04
Packaged: 2019-07-06 21:16:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,299
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15894291
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hooksandheroics/pseuds/hooksandheroics
Summary: What do you do when your detective partner kisses you before leaving to go undercover for six months and you fucked it up? Seriously. Asking for a friend.





	You Can't Shoot Me Down ('Cause You Already Knocked Me Dead)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ladyfriday](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ladyfriday/gifts).



> hello. yes, i know, i should be doing the fantasy au, but i'm here writing a b99 au. this was born out of my rewatch of all the seasons and it came to me how, if yall squint, tessa and scott are amy and jake. i just couldn't resist.
> 
> special thanks to my friend tara for just being the best. this was s'posed to be a surprise but she made me tell her, and now it's out in the open. love you, bitch. 
> 
> title is from Sure Be Cool If You Did by Blake Shelton because i'm a country hick.

Tessa Virtue was gone from the precinct exactly six months, a week, and a day following an undercover stint a city and a half away, and here she is, stepping into the office like nothing had happened.

Well, nothing _had_ happened.

Scott went about his day to day as if nothing changed when Tessa left. He solved cases, drove around with Chiddy, chased perps, and got told off by several old ladies when he accidentally barged into their peaceful little book club trying to hunt down a runaway thief. And he did not look for Tessa at all, not at the desk adjacent to his as he encoded cases after cases, not in the seat where Chiddy sat as they theorized about the bank robbery down 5th street, and definitely not behind him when he kicked down the old ladies’ door, looking on with a smug smirk on her beautiful lips because yes, of course, he was being an idiot and she likes it when he’s wrong about things –

Nope.

He did not.

Besides, she’s back and she’s frowning at her computer like she does whenever she finds a typo in a report. Scott loves that frown. He’s one dead brain cell away from encoding his files with as much typo as he could just to annoy her.

Something hits the back of his head and when he turns around, Chiddy is giving him a look. He’s not gonna lie, it looks like he’s constipated.

“What?” he mouths.

His friend’s eyebrows shoot up his hairline as he puts up his phone and points at it. That’s when Scott realizes that his own phone has been buzzing like crazy for the last couple of minutes. When he checks, his messages just go like –

_STOP_

_STARING_

_AT_

_HER_

Chiddy 9:33 AM

He could stop, and it would not be a problem at all. At least that’s what he thinks. He has been sitting adjacent to Tessa’s desk for a good three years now, and before that, they went to the Academy at the same time. He could stop staring at her, he probably has her face memorized. He could probably describe her in perfect detail to a sketch artist and it would look as realistic as a Renaissance painting. And yet.

No, because first and foremost, she kissed him.

Right before she left, with her suitcase of stuff that she was about to load into her trunk. Right there on the sidewalk. He had heard about her immediate transfer maybe a tad bit later than the rest of the squad because he was too absorbed in an ongoing investigation, so when he found her desk empty a few hours after bagging the perp, he had rushed outside in the off chance that she was still hanging around.

There she still was, fiddling with her car keys.

He wanted to help her but she had already lifted the suitcase into the compartment, and yet he still ran to her side and shut the door for her like the helpful partner that he is.

“Scott!” she had exclaimed like she had seen a ghost. Looking back, she did look a bit pale in the moonlight. “What are you doing here?”

He scoffed at her. “Do you really think I was gonna let you go without a proper good bye?”

“I…” and there it was, that frown when she found a particularly ugly typo. He felt like he ought to at least maybe take a shower or comb his hair if she kept looking at him like that.

He took her wrist and looked her in the eye, concern coloring his tone. “Is everything okay?” he had asked. “Were they forcing you into this? Do you need an escape? Blink twice if yes, cough if no.”

“No, Scott –

“No, they weren’t forcing you into this or no, you’re not allowed to say anything?”

“Scott –

“Because I have a safe house downtown. Don’t ask why. I’m gonna tell you everything anyway when we get there, just say the word –

“Scott!” and there her eyes were, round and luminous in the dark of the sidewalk, suddenly so close to his. Her palm was pressed to his lips, keeping him from babbling any further. He blinked in confusion at her proximity and yet, he wanted to smile. She looked so pretty it hurt sometimes, and he would always tell her, but she would brush it off. So he smiled, right into her hand, like an idiot. “Can you shut up for just a second?”

He nodded against her palm.

“I’m going to keep it here just to make sure,” she said, pressing its warmth to his lips even harder. “Okay,” she took a deep breath and met his eyes again, this time with determination so fiery he felt it in his core. “I’m leaving for who knows how long, and we’re not allowed contact with family and friends. I’m just… going to say it outright, you, Scott Moir, annoy me every morning with your morning person attitude.”

His shoulders sagged. This was not a good goodbye after all.

“But,” she interjected his thoughts. “You always have my back. Ever since the Academy. You never let me down, not once. And you always make me laugh. If I don’t make it back –

Now, he ripped her hand away from his mouth so he could get a word in. She was _not_ just saying what he thought she was saying –

“You are, you’re an amazing detective, you’re going to make it back –

 _Slap_.

Her palm made contact with his mouth again, effectively shutting him up for the second time.

“You don’t know that,” she told him. He pushed her hand away again.

“I do, because you’re going to kick their asses.”

 _Slap_.

He hadn’t even gotten the last half of his last word out before she was slapping him mum.

“There is no guarantee to that, Scott,” she exclaimed, and just as he was going to do it again, she was pulling her hand away and backing him up to the nearest streetlight, his back making contact with the cold metal. “So – just. Shut up and…”

With her lips so close to his, he really should have seen it coming. But there she was, pressing them to his, and in his opinion, this was the best way to make him stop talking. She made a soft sound right into his lips just as his eyes closed, the warmth of her seeping through his whole body like a tidal wave. Her hand, the one she had pressed to his shoulder, had traveled to the back of his head to grasp at his hair and – he’s not going to lie, that’s a turn on. Everything about Tessa Virtue is a turn on, but this one took the cake.

He had opened his mouth to taste her, to know what made her moan, to know what she liked, but the same hand in his hair yanked him away too abruptly.

He wanted to say something but his breathing hadn’t gone back to normal, so he resorted to pressing his forehead against hers, feeling a weight deep in his chest like the beginning of something only Tessa can name.

He wanted more of that, more of her, but she seemed adamant on keeping her distance. It’s fine, she kissed him, she would talk to him about it. Tessa Virtue was very efficient, if anything.

The seconds became minutes and when Scott figured out that she wasn’t going to say anything, he slumped against the lamppost and sighed.

“You really shouldn’t have done that,” he murmured, not looking at her because looking at her would hurt too much. Much more than the usual.

“I’m sorry,” she said.

“You’re leaving.”

She nodded. “I know. And we’re colleagues, it’s inappropriate.”

“Not that,” he replied, finally shooting her a smile. She gave him one of her own and his chest lets up a little. “I… have always wanted to do that. But it’s going to be a long half a year before I get to do that again and I –

“No, I’m sorry, you don’t have to wait for me.” She bit her lip and looked away again. “That was not – you’re not obligated. Do whatever. That was just… a good bye.”

“A good bye?” Scott’s heart dropped a kilometer into the ground. That was a _good bye_? Who kissed their work colleagues on the lips as a good bye?

“Yes,” and she was suddenly walking to the driver’s side, leaving Scott frozen on the sidewalk next to her trunk.

“Tessa!” he called out.

“Good bye, Scott,” she called back.

And then she was gone. For six months, a week, and a day.

*

So yeah, he _could_ stop staring, or he could go on and on all day until Tessa looks at him and finally talks to him. Which – he knows deep in his soul that staring at Tessa all day could probably be grounds for workplace inappropriateness, could result to unproductiveness, and some other tragedy, but _she_ started it.

And so, thirty minutes into the briefing of a new murder case that morning, Scott finds himself volunteering Tessa and him to follow the one lead the initial investigation had found. Marie-France had given them both a weird look for a few long agonizing seconds until she nodded and gave him permission.

An hour later, they’re sitting in Tessa’s sensible Acura in stony silence as Paul Brandt croons in the stereo with some romantic nonsense.

He wants to claw his eyes out because, one, he loves Paul Brandt but his romantic nonsense is really annoying him right now, and two, Tessa still hasn’t spoken a complete sentence to him.

 _Your car smells like stale donuts, we’re taking mine,_ does not count. Especially because it had offended him and he doesn’t want the first thing she’s said to him something as insignificant as that.

Which promptly leads him to saying the stupidest thing he has ever said to his partner. Ever.

“Kissed anyone else lately?”

The car doesn’t exactly screech to a halt in the middle of the street, nor does Tessa really look at him like he has grown a second head. But his coffee sloshes into his pants and Tessa glares at him like he was an ugly typo. Which is worse.

If she asked, if anyone asked, he had only said those words because ever since she kissed him six months ago, he hasn’t stopped thinking about her. That’s a lot of brainpower wasted when he could have been thinking of more cases and more arrests.

If anyone really asked, he’d say it’s because a year into the Academy, she recounted to him every statistical figure of each body part of a police detective getting shot at just because he was nervous about an exam. Right then, he figured he was in love with her and that there might be no turning back.

And if that someone is really annoyingly adamant, he’d say he was worried to death every single day for six months, a week, and a day, and he kept thinking – hey, what if that was the last thing he ever got to say to her? What if the last thing she knew was that he didn’t want to wait for her when it’s the exact opposite? He’d wait for her. Always, like he had done for six months, a week, and a day.

“Excuse me?”

She looks like she wants to strangle him, and he’s not going to lie, he wants to do that, too.

“I just meant… you were gone for a long time, met any – anyone lately?”

“I was on a _mission_ , Scott.”

He hangs his head in shame. “Just so you know, you sound really cool when you say it like that.”

“Scott,” she says, and her tone cages him in.

He looks at her, shame still curdling in his blood, but he sees the blush in her cheeks and maybe… well, maybe he has a fighting chance in whatever this is that they’re refusing to talk about.

“I really missed you,” he tells her and she goes back to looking at the road. She puts the car in hazard, and okay. She’s delaying their arrival at the crime scene to talk. This is a win. “I prayed to God every day that you’re okay.”

She sighs and bites her lip, hesitant. “Thank you. And I missed you too.”

Scott gazes down at his hands, and it’s clear that the words would be difficult to get out. So he prefaces it with the obvious: “Tessa, I said something stupid.”

“Which one?” she asks, an eyebrow raised at him.

“Okay, that’s fair.” He runs a hand through his hair and sighs. “When you left, in particular.”

Tessa shakes her head and continues driving, and Scott feels the spiral of losing. “You’re right, waiting would have just been unfair for the both of us,” she says.

And oh god, if she only knew.

“That’s not what I meant, T,” he pleads.

Montreal traffic buzzes around them and his stomach drops a little when she refuses to look at him again.

Her voice is small and quiet when she speaks next. “Then what did you mean?”

“I couldn’t stop thinking about you,” he says. And it’s true.

It’s true that he worried every single day, but aside from that, he _thought_ about her. He thought about how when she came back, he’d give her flowers and a kiss, like the huge sap that he is.

It takes him back to almost a decade ago back in the Academy, lying on her bed in his sweats and watching her study, hoping he’d somehow absorb whatever she was reviewing about by mere proximity, his own reviewing materials forgotten on the mattress beside him. He would then get distracted with the way she chewed her bottom lip in concentration, words silently forming as she read them off her laptop.

Back then, as stupid as he had been, he thinks falling for Tessa was simultaneously the smartest and the dumbest decision he has ever made.

Letting her kiss him before leaving for half a year was also on top of that admittedly very mind-boggling list, but it wasn’t really up to him that night now, was it?

She glances at him briefly, confused.

“I can explain,” he says, giving her his best _please listen_ eyes.

She frowns, gaze far away. “It better be good, Moir,” she says distractedly, and then steps on the gas like a maniac, giving Scott a small heart attack. “And it better be less than ten seconds because there’s our lead and… they’re running away.”

“What’s a lead doing, running away?”

Tessa gives him the ugly-typo look once more and – _oh_.

*

It turns out, he could not give her an explanation that fitted her ten-second time allotment because the lead turned out to be the suspect… with a gun. There was a tense fifteen-minute chase down narrow alleys and crowded streets until Tessa, in her sensible chucks, tackled and pinned the dude to the ground.

The dude with a gun.

The dude with a gun who saw Scott turning down the alley and thought he’d get away if he shot one of them down.

The dude with _two_ guns, who pulled the other one from under his pant leg after having the first one knocked away from his hand, pointed it at the most beautiful woman in Canada, that had Scott yelling _SHOOT ME_ at the top of his lungs, and fired at Scott before his partner could so much as even yell.

And Scott, he’s got to give it to his partner, the best detective in Montreal because of her efficiency and her quick-thinking, for clocking the suspect out, cuffing him, and then putting pressure onto Scott’s wound in under five seconds.

He couldn’t even remember where the bullet had hit, but what he would never forget is the look in Tessa’s eyes just before he passed out. And the immortal words:

“…you’re such an idiot.”

*

There is also an explanation to the first words he says when he wakes up some few hours ago in a hospital room.

The first is that it’s unmistakably Tessa who has her head pillowed on her arms on the edge of his bed, and it’s unmistakably her hand wrapped around his own, and it’s unmistakably her little snores that has woken him. (Chiddy sits on the futon next to the door, also dozing, but that’s beside the point. He never could focus on anyone else with Tessa near, anyway, which is _so_ bad for the job but eh.)

Second is that she’s in the same clothes as before which means she hasn’t left him and _goddamn_ if that doesn’t make his heart spike close to a heart attack.

He ought to apologize for so many things but instead, he says, “Am I dead?” into the quiet room, rousing his partner.

Her split-second dumbfounded expression before she comes to her senses is the most adorable thing in the world and he couldn’t help but smile. She has lines on just a one cheek from her little nap and if he told her that, she would kill him. She’s not the best person to poke fun at when she’s just woken up.

She frowns and glares at him not a second later, and says, “No, but you’re about to be.”

Scott tries to sit up, be ready for her wrath, but a sharp pain shoots up from the side of his ribs and he drops back down with a gasp – which has Tessa by his side not a second later, worry dripping from her expression.

His hand comes up to where it hurts as he closes his eyes and tries to breathe through it until it passes, and when he opens them again, she’s there with her hand threading through his hair, so close and so…

“Beautiful.”

Her brows furrow. “Huh?”

“You’re so beautiful, you know that, right?”

Her inhale is sharp and surprised, but he’s pretty sure he’s told her this so many times before. “Scott,” she says, and there’s so many things in her tone that he wants to figure out but then she’s crying and his heart drops a million kilometers an hour into the ground.

“T, I’m sorry,” he calls out, catching the hand she has in his hair against his face and keeping it there. “I’m an idiot, okay. Don’t cry, please.”

“I can’t believe you – you did that!” she says, her fingers tightening in his hair. (And fuck, he’s injured and she’s crying but that’s a secret turn on and she’s doing it. Right now. While he’s in a hospital bed. He should just maybe die.)

“That’s the stupidest thing you have ever done in your entire career. You had everybody worried, you know that?” she continues, wiping at the corner of her eyes. “Marie-France even knocked Gonzales out a second time when she found out.”

He snorts, and like a dam breaking, he says, “And you?”

She rolls her eyes. “Of course I was. I always am, you’re my partner and I…”

Hope flares in his chest, making his ribs throb like hell, but fuck that. Tessa is here and her cheeks are pink, and she’s either going to break his heart or make his life, and he’s here for the ride, as long as he gets to keep her as his friend and partner.

“I kissed you, didn’t I?” she finally says, voice timid.

“I think I remember,” he tells her, and it makes her smile.

Tessa, with her immaculate updo drooping to the side, and her make-up runny, and her green eyes tired, looks even _more_ , with the sun’s setting hue escaping the blinds of the room. She lays back down on the edge of his bed, face turned towards him, all the fight leaving her a tired mess, and he couldn’t help himself. He traces her cheek with a fingertip.

They have always been a little closer to crossing the lines ever since they met, and almost all of their friends had pointed that out. Scott has had girlfriends, and none of them had ever been Tessa, but through all of them, he has always put Tessa first.

It will always be like that, he recognizes every now and then.

She shivers under his fingertips and he feels his heartbeat thud in his chest so strongly. He swallows.

“I don’t remember when it had happened,” he says. “But suddenly, one day, I’m in love with the best detective in Montreal.”

“Buttle will be glad to hear that,” she says, but he hears the waver in her voice and he smiles down at her.

“He’s not the best, not in my books,” he tells her. “There’s only one detective in the whole of Montreal who memorized the underground tunnel system for fun, and in case it’s where the runaways tried to hide.”

“That’s me,” she muffles into his sheets.

“Yes,” he nods. “That’s only you.”

“You’re in love with me?” she asks like she couldn’t believe it.

“Yes,” he replies. “For a long time now. It doesn’t mean you have to love me any differently. You can just… be you, and I’ll be me, and we’ll be okay.”

He won’t be, not for a very long time, but he can do this for her, is what he thinks. He’s going to go to work, catch criminals, eat donuts like a stereotypical cop, prank Chiddy, and annoy Marie-France, all with Tessa by his side and he’s going to continue loving her.

“I’ll just be me,” she says determinedly. “And I love you.”

“Yeah.”

She mutters something under her breath and shakes her head, before sitting up to her full height and looking him in the eyes. “I’m also… I’m in love with you.”

“Yeah,” he says, and it’s so not like Tessa to repeat words even when he asks her to because she’s precise like that –

_Wait._

“Wait.”

“He didn’t get you in the ear, did he?” she asks, and the blossom of the smile on her face makes his chest tight and his head spin.

“No, wait, you said –

“Yes, I did.”

 _Yes, she did_ , his brain supplies like he hasn’t turned the words a million times over in his head by now.

“But you were angry! At me!” he can’t help exclaiming. He sits up, successfully this time, but it still hurts and his wince doesn’t escape Tessa’s eye. He is about to say something else, something about her being cold and distant when she came back, but her warm palm is against his lips and he couldn’t move, not an inch, not when he finds himself teleported back to six months ago, right on that sidewalk with his heart in his hand.

Her voice is quiet when she speaks and he couldn’t do anything but listen. “I’m going to keep this here because we both know you’re the worst at listening to me.”

He nods.

“Scott Moir, I’m sorry,” she starts. “I should not have kissed you before I left. It just confused me, and it sure as hell confused you.”

“You said _hell_ ,” he mutters against her hand, muffled beyond coherence. She ignores him.

“And when I got back, I didn’t know what to do. Somehow, I got it all figured out – how I’m going to report everything to the captain, how I’ll eat my celebratory pain au chocolate, how I’ll revamp my Chiddy pranks –

“I have a plan,” he says, but it’s still inaudible. He’ll tell her when this is all over.

“But I couldn’t figure out how to get back to you. Which is how I figured out that I fucked up. Yes, I know, I said ‘fuck’, get over it.”

Her palm is starting to sweat against his lips and it’s not the best feeling in the world, but if she’s touching him, he’ll endure it.

“When I was undercover, all I could think about was how I was going to go back home to you. They served steaks and potatoes in that one place while I was out with a bunch of the mafia family, and all I could think about was how you’d like it if it were a little rarer. I was playing golf with the old ladies and I wanted to laugh with you about the outfits they were wearing.

“When you told me in the car that you couldn’t stop thinking about me, I wish I had told you that it was the same for me. So, I’m telling you now. Scott, I’m in love with you and the paperwork for HR is already in the drawer of my desk in triplicate, so will you please –

He, in all his excitable glory, pushes her hand away from his mouth and grins. “Yes!”

Tessa laughs. “I’m not even finished. Will you let me finish?”

“Okay,” he nods, but his heart is pounding uncontrollably in his chest that he feels like it might burst.

“Scott Moir, will you –

“Yes! Yes! Okay, sorry go on.” He doesn’t even know what he’s agreeing to, surely not a marriage proposal (although he is ready for that) this early in the game. But whatever it is, he’s game.

She sighs, exasperated, but he sees the softness in her eyes, and it’s all he’s ever dreamed of. “Will you please fill out the forms with me tomorrow?” she bites her lip. “I’ll bring them over after lunch.”

“Yes,” he says, and he kisses her. This time, it’s him. This time, he’s sure.

*

Coda:

Chiddy heard everything and he is prepared for the next Chiddy pranks. These two losers better be ready.

**Author's Note:**

> leave a comment or a kudos or head on over to twitter ( [ hooksandheroics ](http://https://twitter.com/hooksandheroics) ) to yell at me. 
> 
> love you all!


End file.
